


Compartmentalize

by FriendshipCastle



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: A Single Dick Joke, Gen, T for swears and a drug mention, basically just a character study, insomnia my old friend, spoilers through Crystal Kingdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9366776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: How the hell do these dudes keep doing what they're doing?





	

The Director (who only thinks of herself as “Lu” when she’s half-asleep or on the increasingly rare occasions when she takes a day off) is keeping an eye on Magnus. He’s far from the smartest one of the Reclaimers but he is the one most likely to take steps out of bounds in the name of personal morals. Taako has self-preservation as his only priority and Merle—while hard to read—isn’t particularly difficult to predict but Magnus hasn’t learned how to shut troublesome thoughts and worries away. 

Two out of three of the Reclaimers can compartmentalize, at least. It’s an extremely valuable skill and is actually, on a more macro scale, the key to the Bureau of Balance’s success; they possess a being that specializes in compartmentalizing information and keeping it out of the minds of the average citizen. Everyone involved in the BOB’s activities has to develop this skill. 

Of course, what the Director doesn’t realize (and what Taako and Merle would be pleased and relieved to know she doesn’t realize) is that no one on the team has learned how to shut things away completely.

 

*

 

Magnus takes walks. He’s restless, and he’s searching for something without knowing exactly what it is he’s searching for, so he walks. The fake moon is a finite space but he’s traversed all of it that he’s cleared to traverse (and a couple places that aren’t strictly allowed for casual wandering). 

He’s not very quiet on these walks. He’s a heavy breather even under ideal physical circumstances and he insists on hobnailed boots that clatter down the long hallways, but that’s not all of his noise; he talks to himself. It’s only fragments of thoughts, the parts he needs to speak aloud so that they’re that much more tangible, but if the hallways were listening they’d hear existential questions such as, “Am I him? Is he me?” and “Someone patch me through to Jules?” Sometimes Magnus writes in a ragged, thinning notebook. Once, it was a fragment of a song. Another time it was a detailed plan for a dunking stool that would fit on the Voidfish’s tank. A very densely written page was a piece of a poem or a thought or an emotion he was trying to work through. He always tears out the page and burns it up in the nearest torch. Stephen observes all this from his enchanted glass bubble, fish eyes unwavering and little mouth blepping open every so often.

After these late walks, he sleeps hard and deep, dreamless, on the good nights. On bad nights, he wakes up sweaty and mad at himself, and both of his roommates know when it’s been a bad night because his sideburns are a mess the next day, not just his hair. Bedbeard and bedhead all in one. It’s not something they ask him about, though. He knows that’s just how they are. They keep insisting that they’re all just coworkers, but Magnus could really use a hug. Maybe those Hugbears will show up again. 

 

*

 

Taako takes nightwalks too, but they are not twisting and wandering the way Magnus’ are. Taako knows exactly where he wants to go. He follows the rim of the fake moon, skirting the edge of campus and the rope safety rail. He watches the horizon. He can be remarkably still and silent. Some people probably think there’s a statue that only appears between the hours of 1:30 and 4:00 in the morning and depicts a medium-sized elf in high-waters and a blouse too loose everywhere except across his paunch, with a greasy wizard hat slightly askew on his head. The statue doesn’t have an umbrella. He does have a coffee cup with him for plausible deniability if anyone asks why he’s out and about. The mug reads “Fuck Melee, Do Spellz” and has a tasteful bouquet of dicks painted into the bottom of the cup as a surprise for anyone who finishes their coffee. 

Taako leaves himself a couple hours a night for meditating. The rest of his time is spent waiting and blinking slowly as the sun rises. Sometimes he twists the big, heavy earring weighing down the pointed tip of his right ear. Sometimes he takes out his stone of farspeech and stares at it before putting it back in his pocket. Sometimes he twitches.

His room is a mess but he never trips over the piles of books and treasure, the dirty clothing heaps, the flaming poisoning raging sword of doom, the boots he needs to fix, the half-eaten meals he should clean up… He doesn’t have a bed in here. There are dressers and nightstands aplenty to contain some of the mess but Taako doesn’t want to encourage guests and doesn’t need to be comfortable to meditate. Magnus made him a chair and it’s currently turned upside down and the legs are being used to dry socks. 

There is a single clear space atop one of the shorter bookcases and Taako heaves himself up there for his nightly meditation sesh. He stays away from introspection; these hours are a time to live in the moment. Taako is all about living in the moment, even when he hasn’t been paying attention and isn’t exactly sure what’s going on in a particular moment. No other time matters as much as now.

 

*

 

Merle is often bewildered by his teammates’ tendency to collect things from their missions. Magnus has enough robot arms that it's turning into a worrying stack of kindling (if Noelle finds the pile Merle is NOT going to help Magnus talk his way out of it) and Taako keeps collecting trinkets and shit in addition to stealing everything that isn’t nailed down. Merle tries to get in on it, he really does, but it just doesn’t make sense. Why own more junk? Can’t take it with you.

He’s a bit of a hypocrite since he owns at least four pipes and two bongs at this point, but they don’t have any sentimental value. Magnus didn’t make him any of them. Magnus wouldn’t know how to make drug paraphernalia if Merle taught him to do it himself, Merle firmly believes this. It’s why he hasn’t bothered offering. 

Merle doesn’t want to see Taako on any kind of intoxicant. It’s why he hasn’t bothered offering. 

He likes to think he can sing, so Merle sometimes take a couple hours when his roommate/coworkers are out to have a little warble of some songs he knows. He wishes he knew something beyond just hymns, but all that concentrating on his breathing and all the loud singing really tuckers him out so it’s quite a useful way to end the day. Taako did teach him a little elven ditty that started, "Oh shit, sweet flip," so that helps mix things up.

Merle sleeps… oddly. Shallow dips into unconsciousness, jerked out by phantom limb twitches in his wooden arm. He sleeps ten hours a night and it’s not the right kind of sleep but it’s not too bad. He could probably get Taako to cast some kind of sleep spell on him but he’s old (he’s got at least a few decades on Taako but he looks three times older than that dumpy little asshole) and he reacts weirdly to sleep spells, so weed it is. It’s not the worst. No way he has it as bad as Magnus, who should probably have some kind of stuffed animal with him to take to bed.

 

*

 

Those are just the nights, though, and particularly bad and boring days. When they’re on a mission, coping is surviving from second to second. It’s cracking wise immediately, or else someone else will steal the punchline. It’s not caring what happens to your body and not even realizing what’s happening to your mind when you’re out trying to save the world. Taako’s jaw unclenches when Avi sends them soaring to their new destination. Magnus cracks jokes. Merle rolls his eyes and makes references that no one gets. Everyone breathes easier. It’s better to keep moving, or else the things they’ve done might just catch up to them.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this goddamn podcast and I love analyzing why these characters are all twisted up and trying to figure out how they keep up the jokes when shit hits the fan (I know the McElroys can keep the goofs flowing but making sense of how it fits with their characters is harder for me to understand). 
> 
> Nights are rough for me so I figure nights might be rough for them too; I project a lot.


End file.
